By now, you must be aware of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT. Details are still developing, but this is a horrible tragedy regardless of the specifics. (I will add a link when the facts are all known; for now, google it)

Disclaimer: I am close friends with the mother of one of the child victims, and with the child.

That said, obviously today was a long, difficult and painful day. Work was the last thing on my mind, as I heard my friend’s growing concern turn to fear and despair as the hours wore on and more details became known.

First it was an incident at a school. My friend learns this, and discovers it was the school her child was at, and heads to the school.

(more)

Then they tell us that the principal and school psychologist were killed. Maybe a dispute over a child, we all think. Then I go to lunch and see on the TV that a teacher was shot in the foot. But when I return from lunch the news is telling me that 27 people are dead, at least 18 are kids. Everyone’s mood makes a tectonic shift. All along, I get texts from my friend saying the police won’t tell her anything. The hours drag on with no news and my apprehension grows. In these cases, “no news” is definitely bad news. A coworker relates how the cousin he lost in 9/11 involved the same lack of information and growing sense of dread.

By late afternoon my friend is finally told the truth (by whom, I do not know). She shares this with me, and I do what I can to comfort her. But nothing I or anyone else can do will make this go away.

And then I return home to find this gem in my email box:

To: Webmaster
From:
Leonard West
raceinfo@yellville.net
Message:
Another Massacre - Another great day for the NRA!
How many more must die before America gets smart and shuts down the
NRA and the Gun Lobby?
Sent from (ip address): 216.134.237.148 (148.237.dsl-dhcp.ytc.net)
Date/Time: December 14, 2012 7:06 pm
Coming from (referer): http://www.yankeegunnuts.com/contactus/
Using (user agent): Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_8;
en-us) AppleWebKit/530.19.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.2
Safari/530.19

Well. Other than the fact that this ignoramus is too dumb to use a real computer, what do we know about this Leonard West?

The email address is in Arkansas. It belongs to a little half-assed dirt racetrack:

I wonder: do they race cars there, or do they saddle hogs and hold a hayseed Preakness?

There is a Leonard Lee West who lives in Ash Flat, AR (321 Highway 62 W, Ash Flat, AR 72513-9011) and likes to donate to Democrat politicians:

What are the chances that it’s the same imbecile? Pretty good, I think. He thinks it’s OK to send his opinions to me, so he must feel that it’s OK for others to share their opinions with him.

Well, Leonard, you won’t have to listen to me lecture you on the facts of gun violence. As a liberal, you wouldn’t listen anyway. And when would you have the time to listen, with your busy schedule of having sex with your siblings, cousins and farm animals? Methinks you would be too distracted to listen to any pesky facts that might knock down the house-of-cards barrier of willful ignorance that you hide behind to escape the scary real world.

I have no doubt that in your feeble, grasping mind, one more gun law (on top of the 20000 we already have) would have prevented this. I’m sure it would be one doozy of a law, Leonard.

Likewise, despite the fact that Britain banned guns and has proven incapable of keeping them out of the hands of criminals (despite being an island!), your plodding brain must think that banning guns in America will work perfectly (despite 5000+ miles of land border that can be crossed on foot). Banning drugs worked great, right Leonard? Love that liberal logic.

Leonard, do the world a favor: shut your drooling toothless mouth and stop writing unsolicited harassing emails. No one cares what an old liberal douchebag like you thinks or says. I know that will be a shock to a narcissistic blowhard such as yourself, but I assure you that it is the truth.

You and your opinions are neck and neck in a race to see which one is less important to the rest of humanity. Mosquito farts have more significance than what you think or say or write. Though, after seeing People of Walmart, I must say that your mere existence provides some humor for the rest of us. So I thank you for that.

Update:

I posted this elsewhere but it seemed relevant.

Why are we letting mental patients like this monster and the Batman movie theater murderer and the loon who shot Gabby Giffords roam free?

Lock them up or euthanize them. They can’t be cured and they are a waste of resources that could be better spent on patients that pose less risk to society. And yes, I will volunteer my time to handle either task.

As a gun-totin’ Democrat, I can tell you that it isn’t “the liberals” who want to ban drugs. It’s your conservative friends. Did you notice that blue states Washington and Colorado are the first to legalize marijuana? There’s a reason you don’t see that in Texas or Georgia.

Misguided conservatives think banning drugs will keep them off the streets, just as misguided liberals think banning guns will keep those off the streets.

You’re proving to be some sort of irrational conspiracy nut with this dark figure of British crime guff.

I have lived in Britain for over 50 years and not once in that time has anyone I have ever known been killed by a gun or even wounded by a gun. I have never even SEEN a gun in that 50 years and outside soldiers I don’t know anyone who has either.

And let me show you how irrational you are on this. You say gun crime in Britain is up 89%? In what fashion and what do you think that would mean in a nation where ALL gun crime is negligible thus any percentage increase in itself is tiny unless it were in thousands of percentage points?

If ANYONE were killed by a gun ANYWHERE in the country that would be national headline news. In your country a single gun death and even multiple deaths would normally would get a passage in the relevant local paper then be forgotten.

And gun free zones? What the hell do I care about such irrelevant drivel when I live in a TOTALLY gun free nation and don’t ever have any gun problems with any lunatics because they cannot get guns. You don’t have any gun free zones, I do.

And I will tell you something else, Limerick is in Ireland and Ireland is NOT Britain but if you awant to talk about knives let’s point out more of your irrationality. On the same day this Newtown massacre took place a knifeman attacked a school in China stabbing 22 kids. Know how many died? NONE!!!

See the difference between guns and knives kid? You see kid I have actually been invlved in a knife incident and I too survived because you know what? You can actually run from a guy with a knife or even pick up something as simple as a piece of wood and even that will give you the upper hand against a knife.

Fancy trying that against a gunman kid? Your attempt to equate a knife with a gun is typical of the vaccuous arguments you try to portray as rational in attempting to persuade people that a society littered with guns can be anything but a disaster area.

REALITY: Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146

Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2008: 39

THAT’S what happens in a REAL gun free zone that’s enforced by taking all the guns away.

The only thing I could perhaps agree on concerning these guns is that the US has dug itself into such a hole humouring the gun nuts for decades that I see no way for them to now dig themselves out of it.

LOL. Why am I not surprised that a subject to the British crown is bleating their party line?

Re: British crime stats…facts are facts. Your law enforcement people are deliberately understating crime stats. If you are too blind to see the problem with that, there’s nothing I can do to help you.

“I have lived in Britain for over 50 years and not once in that time has anyone I have ever known been killed by a gun or even wounded by a gun. I have never even SEEN a gun in that 50 years and outside soldiers I don’t know anyone who has either.”

2 points to make on this. First, it’s an anecdote and no one has any proof that you are being truthful or accurate in saying it.

Second, Google “Pauline Kael Nixon”. You might live in a bubble, but I do not.

“If ANYONE were killed by a gun ANYWHERE in the country that would be national headline news.”

Media Reports do not equal fact. The media (all of them, everywhere) have an inherent bias, and every employee of their organization brings their own bias as well. Hence the utter silence on the explosion of gun murders in gun-free Chicago. The truth would tend to make people lose faith in strict gun laws.

“And gun free zones? What the hell do I care about such irrelevant drivel when I live in a TOTALLY gun free nation and don’t ever have any gun problems with any lunatics because they cannot get guns. You don’t have any gun free zones, I do.”

Then why is gun crime up 89% in the last decade in your gun free zone?

“if you awant to talk about knives let’s point out more of your irrationality. On the same day this Newtown massacre took place a knifeman attacked a school in China stabbing 22 kids. Know how many died? NONE!!!

See the difference between guns and knives kid? You see kid I have actually been invlved in a knife incident and I too survived because you know what? You can actually run from a guy with a knife or even pick up something as simple as a piece of wood and even that will give you the upper hand against a knife.”

You got lucky, and I am happy for you. But once again you mistake your personal anecdote for the totality of experiences.

The particular group of Chinese victims you mentioned was lucky; 21 others in China since 2010 are dead however, and 90 grievously wounded.

1) Osaka School Massacre (and there are plenty of others)

2) Running is no defense, especially if you can’t run faster than your attacker. And a piece of wood is hardly a counter for a knife, especially when you don’t have one!

“Fancy trying that against a gunman kid? Your attempt to equate a knife with a gun is typical of the vaccuous arguments you try to portray as rational in attempting to persuade people that a society littered with guns can be anything but a disaster area.”

The myth that you are parroting is a statistical trick used to fool people into thinking that deliberate knife attacks are dramatically less dangerous than guns. They aren’t. But that fact won’t help the gun control lobby enact gun laws.

Much the same as the “statistics” showing that Golden Retriever dogs bite people most often, while not mentioning the vast popularity of the breed or the fact that accidental bites (going for a ball while playing fetch) are included in the numbers. The rate of actual aggressive attacks is absurdly low.

I don’t know where you are getting your stats from, but I have already documented the systematic fraud in British crime statistics. The crooks have the upper hand in Britain.

And why is it that you are comparing 2 different years of stats, and only a single year, and both were quite some time ago?

Why not examine the long term trend? Or do you not want to admit that your precious gun free zone isn’t working?

You live on an island, kid, in a country with no civilian gun ownership aside from a few birding shotguns (your Olympic shooting competitors have to leave Britain to practice!). Why has your gun crime rate almost doubled in the last decade?

I came over here from SYLG to say how sorry I am for your loss and my heart breaks for your friend. No one should have to bury a child, and certainly not in this horrible way. I pray for the families of those children every night and as a mother, still can’t comprehend how you manage to survive losing one of your babies. Please convey to her when she is ready to hear it, that we are all praying for her, even though she is a stranger, if I could take just one oz of her pain away, I’d do it in a heartbeat. God Bless.

“In Baltimore, about 91% of murder victims this year had criminal records, up from 74% a decade ago, police reported. Philadelphia also has seen the number of victims with criminal pasts inch up — to 75% this year from 71% in 2005. In Milwaukee…77% of homicide victims in the past two years had an average of nearly 12 arrests.”

And, to be perfectly honest with you JFK, I really don’t give a shit if crooks get killed.

Now that you can’t dismiss the increase in British gun crime as an American conspiracy, what is your response?

One thing that seems to be missing, especially in comments from the anti-gun crowd, is that “gun crime” isn’t the whole picture. If you look at crime overall, especially violent crime, the numbers definitely don’t favor the gun control paradise that the UK has become.

Also, as Thomas Sowell points out, the differences are cultural, not the presence of guns.

It doesn’t matter how retarded you become trying to spin this madness into sanity it changes nothing.

Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146

Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2008: 39

That’s 39 in a whole year while in the US there are 60 gun deaths EVERY SINGLE DAY. And you think Britain has a problem with guns? What planet are you on?

Let’s even remove the guns and take the total murder rate in Britain.

In the UK (population c. 60.5m) there were 765 reported incidents of murder for 2005-6 (Home Office, undated) – a rate of about 1.1 per 100,000.

In the US (population c. 298.5m) there were an estimated 16,137 homicides in 2004 (FBI, 2006a) – a rate of about 5.4 per 100,000. Of these, 10,654 were carried out with guns (FBI, 2006b).

Can you comprehend that??? Around 14 times as many murders by guns alone than the whole UK murder rate with just 5 times the population.

And you think I have no experience of what it’s really like in the US? Think again. I have been in Oklahoma since March this year and there is a gun incident basically every single day in a state with just 3.5 million people.

Just last night another gun nut went on a rampage then suicided on I-35. And still it doesn’t get through the fog with you people.

I can only put it down to some primitive infantile obsession about playing cowboy with these weapons and a fear that you’re nothing but a small man without them but a pseudo tough guy carrying one. Real tough.

Grow a spine and prevent the slaughter of the innocents which will continue to happen again and again till you nuts have the balls to face life without your pseudo tough guy guns. I have a pair of fists that have defended me perfectly well all my life. That would appear to be too manly for you people.

I have shown you how your own country is cooking the books on their crime stats. I even showed you your own country’s newspapers detailing the explosion of violence and gun crime in Britain.

Where is your data? Show me where you are getting these bogus numbers from. It isn’t from some biased anti-gun fanatic is it?

“Just last night another gun nut went on a rampage then suicided on I-35. And still it doesn’t get through the fog with you people.”

That must be a fabrication, because I didn’t see anything in the paper about it.

“And you think I have no experience of what it’s really like in the US? Think again. I have been in Oklahoma since March this year”

And clearly you brought all of your ignorance and prejudices with you.

But I am glad you are here now, away from the most crime-infested hellhole in Europe, with more violent crime than the U.S. I don’t know if you realize it, but gun crime in Britain is up 89% in the last 10 years, despite guns being banned! It must be true, since I read it in a British newspaper.

“I can only put it down to some primitive infantile obsession about playing cowboy with these weapons and a fear that you’re nothing but a small man without them but a pseudo tough guy carrying one. Real tough.”

When the crooks have no guns, I will listen to your pleas to disarm. Until that day, I will leave being a defenseless victim to people like you.

“Grow a spine and prevent the slaughter of the innocents which will continue to happen again and again till you nuts have the balls to face life without your pseudo tough guy guns.”

Banning guns in Britain hasn’t eliminated gun crime there.

“I have a pair of fists that have defended me perfectly well all my life. That would appear to be too manly for you people.”

That’s what they had available to defend themselves at Sandy Hook Elementary School for the 20 minutes it took for the police to show up. It didn’t do them much good.

Yesterday I buried a 6 year old who charged Adam Lanza to try and save his friends. If some adult at that school had a gun of their own, the loss of life might have been lower, or even prevented.

We will never know what might have been different.

But I know that I will retain my option to defend myself and my loved ones, no matter how much ignorant people complain about it.

“Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.”

Wow, according to the Guardian (a left-wing British newspaper), British crime statistics are flawed and under-reported:

“British crime statistics are complicated partly because of double recording. Firstly, there are the official police figures (which historically under-record the true level of crime). Then there is the old British Crime Survey – now the Crime Survey for England and Wales – where over 40,000 people are asked for their direct experiences of crime. This is regarded as the most authoritative of either.”

“551 homicides (includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide) were reported in 2011/12, a considerable drop on the previous year’s total of 638. Homicides are now down to around half of the figure for 2001/2.”

That would be an INDIVIDUAL right…

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.